Texas ends scholarships for undocumented students. This sounds cruel, until you realize almost every nation has the same policy.

Photo above: Dolores and Maeve from Westworld. “This is the new world. And in this world you can be whoever the f**k you want . . . “

At first my heart went out to Ximena, an undocumented 18-year-old who was planning to get a PhD in Chemistry, but now has to rethink her plans. (see link at bottom). Texas is ending scholarships and in-state tuition subsidies for migrant children without visas or citizenship.

Ximena is only 18, and possibly she COULD have gone on to win the Nobel prize in chemistry. Or be a college instructor, or government researcher. There are 2,000 American chemistry PhD degrees awarded each year, so it was possible.

Ximena has been in American (Texas) schools since kindergarten, so she already has many years of instruction at taxpayer expense. I assume her mother/parents brought her to Texas as a small child. If she’d been born here, Ximena would be a citizen, and entitled to public education and free college. And not the focus of the article below.

I don’t want to demonize Ximena. This situation is NOT her fault. But Ximena would have the same outcome, whether her mother had crossed the English Channel instead of the Rio Grande, and whether she ended up in Herefordshire instead of Houston.

In fact, when you do a Google search for “countries with free tuition for migrants”, it serves up just Finland, Sweden and Norway.

I would LOVE it if America had enough money to feed, house, clothe, and educate every migrant who yearns to come here after seeing a TV show like Westworld or Resident Alien. But that would be half the planet – about 4 billion people. And America already has a housing crisis. Imagine trying to get zoning variances and construction permits for enough apartments and manufactured housing for 4 billion additional newcomers.

My advice to Ximena, and anybody else who wants to attend an American college: apply for citizenship, or an F1 student visa. Citizenship is probably easier these days, though.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

What’s happened since Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented students